Field Norway Chess Completed

On Tuesday the field for the Norway Chess tournament in June was completed with Anish Giri of the Netherlands. He will play together with Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler and Simen Agdestein, who qualified by beating Jon Ludvig Hammer in a rapid match.

Norway Chess is this year sponsored by Unibet, an online gambling company located in Malta, even though the logo cannot be shown due to legal restrictions.

The second edition of the Norway Chess tournament will be the next super tournament, with many top 10 players playing. The dates are 2-13 June, 2014 and again the Stavanger region is hosting the event. Since the promotion of the region is one of the main ideas behind the tournament, again the players will be moving the pieces in different locations, but not as many as last year. Here's the schedule:

Norway Chess 2014 | Schedule

Day

Date

Time

Event

Venue

Monday

02.06.2014

17.00

Blitz

Flor & Fjære – closed event

Tuesday

03.06.2014

15.30

1th round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Wednesday

04.06.2014

15.30

2nd round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Thursday

05.06.2014

15.30

3rd round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Friday

06.06.2014

15.30

School tournament

Vitenfabrikken, Sandnes

Saturday

07.06.2014

15.30

4th round

Vågen VGS, Sandnes

Sunday

08.06.2014

15.30

5th round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Monday

09.06.2014

15.30

6th round

Aarbakke fabrikkhall, Bryne

Tuesday

10.06.2014

15.30

7th round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Wednesday

11.06.2014

TBA

Celebrety tournament

To be announced

Thursday

12.06.2014

15.30

8th round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

Friday

13.06.2014

15.30

9th round

Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus

The main hotel, where most of the games will be played, has been moved to a place between Sandnes and Stavanger: the Hotel Scandic Stavanger Forus. The blitz event will be held on the beautiful Flor & Fjære island, there will be a school tournament in the Vitenfabrikken in Sandnes, the 4th round of the main tournament will be at Vågen VGS and the 6th round at the Aarbakke factory.

In November 2013 the second Norway Chess tournament was already confirmed. The main sponsors are Scandic, Stavanger Aftenblad, Altibox, Lyse, Aarbakke og Jadarhus. The five last of these were also sponsors for Norway Chess 2013.

The first players who confirmed their participation were Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Veselin Topalov, Fabiano Caruana, Sergey Karjakin and Peter Svidler. Mid-February Vladimir Kramnik also said “yes” to the organizers, and about four weeks later his compatriot Alexander Grischuk was added to the list.

Last year, besides Carlsen Norway's honors were defended by Jon Ludvig Hammer, but this time it will be Simen Agdestein. The 46-year-old grandmaster, who represented Norway as a footballer player two decades ago but is now mainly occupied with chess coaching, defeated Hammer in a rapid qualification match on April 27th.

The match, which took place during the Shamkir Chess tournament, was held in the TV2 studio and broadcast live on TV and online. Agdestein won with a score of 3.5-1.5, winning games three and four:

Yesterday, the final player was confirmed: Anish Giri of the Netherlands. Here's the full list of participants:

Norway Chess 2014 | Participants

#

Name

Country

Born

Rating

World #

1

Magnus Carlsen

Norway

November 30, 1990

2882

1

2

Levon Aronian

Armenia

October 6, 1982

2815

2

3

Alexander Grischuk

Russia

October 31, 1983

2792

3

4

Fabiano Caruana

Italy

July 30, 1992

2783

5

5

Vladimir Kramnik

Russia

June 25, 1975

2783

6

6

Veselin Topalov

Bulgaria

March 15, 1975

2772

8

7

Sergey Karjakin

Russia

January 12, 1990

2770

9

8

Peter Svidler

Russia

June 17, 1976

2753

13

9

Anish Giri

The Netherlands

June 28, 1994

2746

17

10

Simen Agdestein

Norway

May 15, 1967

2625

161

Alongside the main tournament there will be an open tournament, held 6-9 June at «2020park», a real estate business park at Forus, in short walking distance from the Scandic Forus Hotel. It's a 6-round Swiss in three rating groups.